My husband did the 6:45 wake up with the kids and then he napped with the baby in the late morning. When they came down, I asked him if I could have an hour to rest.

“Take more than an hour,” he offered, generously. “Take all the time you need.”

So I decided that while I would not take advantage of his kindness, I would take a nice, long shower, wash my hair (this is actually a big deal. Hi, twinny!), get into bed and doze off, likely to the sounds of Slate’s Serial Podcast (I know. “They’ll tell you I’m insane.”

I grabbed my most plush bathrobe, salon shampoo and

and…

and

then this is how it really went down.

I was barely out of the shower when I heard small footsteps and the words “Mama! Mama!” being chanted on repeat. It was my son, who broke into the bathroom. He held out his arms to me, and instead of picking him up, I just hugged him. We stayed for awhile in that embrace, I was on my knees and he smelled like pretzels. When we separated I also saw that he had a handful of my Vanilla Cream Valentine’s Day Peeps. I felt blessed and warm inside, despite being dripping wet.

Not a minute later my daughter was up, joining us in my bedroom as I tried to transfer from towel to bathrobe while constructing a turban on top of my head. “Oh, hi, mom.” She had a handful of Swedish Fish.

I told them both how much I love them. I moisturized and brushed my hair and then I walked downstairs…

to find my husband, perched on the couch, playing a videogame.

“Are you missing anything?” I asked.

And that, my friends, is what an hour of relaxation time is like for a mom. Gotta jet, I still have 21 minutes.

And that’s if Battlefield 4 doesn’t get in the way.

The post An hour as a mother. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

I am used to many of my posts being greeted with great warmth and empathy.

“I feel exactly the same way!” I hear.

But I don’t think that this will be that kind of post; it is going to be a different post.

An unpopular post.

And that is OK.

I am writing in support of the snow day today, and, really, in defense of all snow days, whether the call was made wisely due to blizzard-like-conditions, or prematurely, causing great inconvenience.

I am a teacher. I have been the director of programs for children. I am a stay-at-home-mom and the primary caregiver for my kids. I am a writer who works from my house.

I get it.

But first, let me backtrack a bit. Before I was a mother, I was a teacher. I went to graduate school for education, have taught at many age levels and have heard countless (literally countless) complaints about school being closed for snow days.

When parents enroll their children in school, educational or extracurricular programs, they do so because they need to. And when those programs are cancelled because of (impending or falling or fallen) snow, it can cause problems, ranging from inconvenient to nearly impossible.

But, and I say this with all of the compassion in the world, I think that this culture of “OH NO, PLEASE I PRAY THAT MY KID’S SCHOOL DOESN’T CLOSE” has gotten a bit ridiculous. There, I said it. This is part of what is going to make this post unpopular; perhaps, even unappreciated. But, let me explain.

During my first years as a full time teacher, I was not yet a mother, though I longed to be. This is not a subject I have ever broached on this site before, and this is not the post in which I will really be doing so, though it is coming. It took me a bit of time to conceive my first child. I had no diagnosis, no medical problems of which to speak, and I was very young. It just wasn’t happening. And that situation went from inconvenient to nearly impossible.

I have always been a teacher who loved my students as my own and cared for them as such; It was hard when I held children, for whom I cared so deeply, and found myself waiting month after month, facing the constant disappointment of “we will try again next time”. You may have noticed on my sidebar that I have advertised for The Healing Arts Center of Philadelphia since the launch of the new site. This is because, as I have stated time and again, the goal of the advertising on my site is to make peoples’ lives better and that is what Steven Mavros did for me. Much more on Steven and his practice later, as they will be the subject of a whole post (because, really, the story of how we recently went out for a business dinner and I told our waiter, “This is the man who got me pregnant, but no, we have never been together” deserves a post of it’s own, does it not?) but for now, I am just trying to provide context. I wanted to be a mother, but it took some time. And every time a parent would complain to me about how the school had to close for “another school day?” something inside me would hurt.

But I am a compassionate and non-judgmental person. I realized, always, two salient points: that these parents loved their children to no end and that I had no real concept of what it was like to actually be a parent, day in and day out, as my children left me at the end of each school day.

And then, in 2010, I became a mother. For four years, I taught every day while also being the primary caregiver to my daughter. It was a constant juggling act. I had to miss things little things like pediatrician appointments and snuggly sick days, and then bigger things, like her recent camp visiting day when she learned how to swim for the very first time. Again, these things that I missed, they were sometimes inconvenient and other times, nearly impossible.

But enough about the past. Let’s move on to today. Because today is the first day when I have worked up the courage to say this thing that I have been thinking since I was a student teacher nearly a decade ago.

Let me give you some of my perspective:

Today, I have two kids home with me, as I stay at home with my son and my daughter’s school is closed for a snow day.

Today, I had 4 appointments on my calendar, as well as the management of several projects involved in the finishing of our basement. At least one has been delayed so far because of today’s snow, pushing back our deadline (which was originally scheduled for January 5) even further.

Today I had two doctor’s appointments, one for my son that is possibly scary and definitely time sensitive

and one for myself.

I don’t talk about it all the time, but I am still facing major health issues and a dramatic change in my treatment plans.

I also had a business meeting scheduled for a possible partnership that would be extremely exciting for me and even more exciting for you (pinky swear).

I also have a babysitter scheduled for today, but because of the weather and her commute from center city, we had to change her hours to keep her safe (my top priority, no question).

 Finally, I have this. This is not only a source of great joy for me (which it is–it so is) but it is also my job. And while I try to tell my daughter to watch my son so that I can publish a quick post, the laptop is like a magnet for a 16 month old whose favorite toys are the Xbox, remote and toilet (read: I cannot type a word when he is in the room, and I can’t leave him alone without him crawling into the oven).

This means that for me, snow days are far from easy. But I love them. I love today. I smiled when I woke at 6:15am to see the email from my daughter’s preschool that they would be closed. I was so excited to tell her that we would be able to stay home together, drinking hot chocolate and making up new games. I love the necklace of beaded hearts that I am wearing, just placed around my neck by my little girl who wanted to make me a special snow day present.

I am discouraged that my son’s appointment with the ophthalmologist has to be postponed;

I am disappointed that I won’t have my coffee date that I was hoping to turn into a partnership;

I get overwhelmed by the juggling act, just like everyone else.

But I am also endlessly grateful. I am so grateful that the people who are in charge of my daughter’s school have decided that her safety (our safety) is paramount;

I am grateful that I can hear my kids whispering from the other room right now as I type (I am hiding the laptop under a blanket) as they hide in their own clubhouse of sorts.

But, most of all, I am grateful that I have the problem of having more juggling pins than I have hands, because that means that my dreams have come true.

I have the resources to get help for my health issues;

I am writing, now, every day;

I am a mother.

So perhaps, instead of scorning the snow day (or me, for writing this unpopular post), you can find a way to celebrate it,

inconveniences, impossibilities and all,

because a snow day that makes life hard means that we have so much.

Appointments can be rescheduled. Personal days can be taken. Things can be figured out. Deadlines can be pushed back

And it is not always easy,

but it is my firm belief that it is always,

always

worth it.

The post An unpopular post. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

1. She has an incredible gift for verbal communication. She has been talking since 6 months old and has never stopped. But she is one of those “old soul” types, and I am stunned every single day by the brilliance thatx comes out of her mouth.

And

2. A wildly active, incredibly creative imagination.

This makes things extremely fun (usually) but also extremely difficult (think “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, except that this wolf is just realistic enough that it might have actually gotten onto the school playground that day and let her pet it, so that I can’t say 100% that she is making up a story).

This morning, as I changed my son, my daughter serving as my perpetual shadow, gabbing away,

she said something that actually made my ears perk up.

(I do listen to what she says, it is just that it is impossible to actually internalize every single thing that comes out of the mouth of someone who truly never stops talking.)

She said, “Mommy, have you ever heard of dessert peas? They have these little peas and one eye and they are from the desert and they are red. They stay on roots, or something, like these little lines.”

Okay. I was confused. This was one of those things that toed the line of fact and fantasy. And for the record, I purposely wrote “dessert” and then “desert”, as that is how they were described to me.

“Is that really true?” I asked, as I had not, in fact, heard of one eyed dessert peas that grow in the desserts  from roots.

“Yes!” she was really passionate. “It really is!”

“They also are sometimes purple,” she continued.

“Okay. I need for you to really tell me the truth,” I said, as my tactic with her seems to work; I say something like “Is it possible that maybe you are making up a little of the story of what happened or it was in your imagination? Is it possible that maybe you did color a tiny bit on your furniture? You know you can always be honest with me. I will never be mad at you for telling the truth.” If I were to actually accuse her of lying she would a) continue to lie and b) get upset.

I continued, “are there really things called dessert peas from the dessert that are red and purple and have one eye?”

“Okay,” she said with a great inhale and exhale. “I may have actually dreamed the purple part, but the red part is true. I promise.”

The plot thickens.

So because I had a baby to change and a kid to dress for school and a lunch to pack and two breakfasts plus warm milk to make, I wrote down her exact quotes so that I wouldn’t forget and moved on with my morning.

And so, when I had a second to sit during the baby’s nap, I typed “one eye dessert pea” into the search engine on my phone and it came up with a very varied list of responses. Most were recipes for a sweet Vietnamese rice and bean pudding.

Then, the smart search engine asked me if I would like to, instead, try looking up “one eye desert pea”.

And guess what?

Swainsona formosa, one of the best known wildflowers of Australia, is referred to as “Sturt’s Desert Pea”.

And they look like this:

Image gallery via Google Images

So I am very proud of my daughter for learning about this plant–something that I had absolutely no idea about–and retaining the information about it.

But I am also proud of her for being the colorful and inventive method person, almost performer, that she is. If you walk into our house and you have previously played a role play game with her, expect, without a doubt, to be called by your character’s name.

I am proud of her for being open-minded and imaginative;

In her world, there are these crazy one eyed dessert trees that grow in the dessert on roots that look like lines.

And we will work on the “desert” v. “dessert” distinction, but not yet.

Because for now,  Swainsona formosa plants exist,

as do edible plants from arid climates

and I think that we can make room for both.

The post Swainsona formosa appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

I am endlessly grateful that it has just been some lingering respiratory things and maybe a touch of the stomach flu,

as it is almost the one year anniversary of our week in the hospital with a sick 2 month old with RSV. That was also the worst time in my entire life.

So while this week has been less than desirable, I can’t even call it bad.

There were playdates that had to be cancelled and there was food that couldn’t be eaten and I was up a lot of the past two nights listening to my daughter cough and cough.

But her spirits have been great, and I savored the days of cuddling.

I spent the entirety of Sunday in my pajamas. We played with baby dolls and a doctor’s kit and magnatiles and her hair and I even got her to sit with me for five minutes of this past week’s Grey’s Anatomy that I still have not been able to catch up on. (Don’t judge!)

But the highlight of the weekend was most definitely the music. We used the XBox 1 app that is attached to our big living room TV to play both XBox radio and YouTube videos, and got to go through a great array of music, from spooky to hip hop to holiday.

And then, we stumbled upon the holy grail: Idina Menzel and Michael Buble singing “Baby it’s Cold Outside”, as child actors mouth the words and dance along in a twenties style extravaganza. My daughter was hooked in three seconds.

This was awesome for so many reasons, not the least of which being that I now finally have someone with whom I can sing the duet. She makes me be the boy, but whatever.

We must have watched this adorable music video 15 times over the past two days. We hummed around the house. She even sat in the bathroom as I took a shower so that she could get the benefits from the steam and we practiced the duet from over the glass shower door.

So despite the frigid temps and the horrid cough, we were still able to muster up the strength for an ottoman stage performance, in our pjs, and it was the bright spot in an otherwise dreary week.

Things right now may be slightly less than ideal–and I struggle with keeping my glass half full–but I got to spend a few minutes on a freezing Sunday night in November with my two kids in my arms, dancing to holiday music.

This time last year, that would have been an impossibility.

For this, I am grateful; I am warm.

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